If A Butterfly Can Make a Difference, So Can You!

What possible difference can a butterfly make? If you don’t know (I didn’t, until now), please read on.

This article also serves to celebrate a new friendship. I only got to know this man recently, but in a very short space of time, I got to know him well enough to have a great deal of respect for him and a principle that he is teaching to help people overcome life’s challenges. I have only met this man (on line) in the beginning of October 2014, but it feels as though I have known him for much longer than this. His name is Larry Lewis.

“So, what does a butterfly have to do with Larry Lewis and making a difference?”

Being a professional life coach, Larry is also the founder of an online coaching program called “The Reinvention University”. The theme Larry is using for his coaching program is that of a “caterpillar turning into a butterfly”*. I absolutely love nature, but in all honesty, if you know me at all, you would know that I love the open spaces, mountains, big game, the ocean etc. and it shouldn’t be hard for you to understand that with my first visit to his site, the idea of caterpillars and butterflies didn’t really catch my attention firsthand. What I did realize though, is the fact that I was facing certain obstacles in life, and it was becoming extremely frustrating! What fascinated me was his approach towards life and his ways of dealing with it.

I enrolled, and currently I am working through a course of his called “Compass for Life” as presented in the Reinvention University. As mentioned, Larry’s theme is based on a caterpillar, eventually turning into a beautiful butterfly. As I progress through this course, I can see how this theme becomes more and more relevant.

“It Doesn’t Stop At The Butterfly Though…”

Having some private time this morning, I was working through a book I am currently reading, called FEAR FIGHTERS**. And there the butterfly got mentioned again! Have you ever heard of the “butterfly effect”***? It is a term being used in physics to describe the ability of “miniscule changes in the initial conditions (such as the flap of a butterfly’s wings) to have far-reaching, large-scale effects on the developments of the system (such as the course of weather a continent away)”.

The phrase “the butterfly effect” refers to the idea that “the motion of a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location”.

“What Does This Have To Do With Your Life, And Any Difference You Can Make?”

Although this is a theory used in physics, and they are using all these complicated formulas (half of which makes me glad I didn’t choose that as a career…..lol), there is a huge lesson we can learn from this!

So often we can feel like that typical butterfly, “flapping our wings” (or peddling water – so to speak). It feels as if we are making no impact whatsoever! No matter how hard we try, nobody listens. Getting all “fired-up”, and sharing our goals, announcing what we want to achieve in life, often ends up in us getting mocked and ridiculed about it.

Yet, if we can only have enough courage to start “flapping our wings”, that might be all that is needed to cause change in our lives, putting us on a road to success beyond our wildest dreams!

What we need to learn is to perhaps (especially in the beginning) apply more wisdom and discretion as to who we share our dreams with! Often we are so excited, that we start announcing our dreams to whoever wants to listen (and even those who don’t want to listen either). The feedback we then receive is often negative. The big question here is: how many of these people have achieved great success in their lives? They often are just happy to settle for whatever they can get out of life, and will do their very best to keep us there with them.

If we find that members of our family are the ones being negative, still love them, but we need to be very selective about the information we share. We need to learn the difference between an open minded person, giving real good, realistic and constructive advice, often even challenging our thinking, pushing us to come up with even better, more creative ideas, versus someone who is just plain negative.

We need to start keeping company with successful and positive people if we want achieve success ourselves. Once we start achieving success, who knows….maybe that can set the trend for the rest of that exact same group of (previously) negative people, to start following our example.

“Announcing Your Dream Is Not Flapping Your Wings Yet!”

It is important to remember that talking about our goals and dreams are not “flapping our wings yet!” Although it is good to talk about it, we need to be careful and wise as to whom we share it with. Negative people can quickly “run us down”, pointing out all the reasons why our goals could never be achieved. Some people might even attempt to make a “mockery” of our dreams. This can easily lead to us giving up on our dreams. So if we only get to the “talking stage” and then give up on our dreams, no action has been taken and you will never see any results.

Consider this, every big invention, every major corporation, everything that has ever been achieved on this planet, started with an idea. Many great people were made out to be crazy, they were ridiculed, but they persevered! Because of their perseverance we can press a button today, and there is instant light. We can travel to any destination in the world in a matter of hours! We can watch how news events are unfolding across the globe by turning on a television set. The list goes on and on.

So, it all starts with an idea, and then we start speaking about it (with wisdom and discretion – to the right people). Then we need to start taking action! Without taking action, it will always stay a dream! Once we start taking action, we start “flapping those wings”. Action will produce results! It might not always be the desired results in the beginning, but there will be results! If not the desired results, we have learned something, and we know where to make some changes. More action will lead to better results, until we get the desired results! We need to keep on keeping on, until the results start making a positive impact on society (the desired result) and we start achieving our goals.

“We Can Make a Difference”

There is a well known saying of Napoleon Hill that says “whatever the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve”!

If the theory in physics makes the assumption that a tiny little creature – such as a butterfly – can make such a massive difference, imagine the enormous difference we as humans can make (by choice)!

Please leave a comment below and share with us about the difference you have already made, or the difference that you are planning to make!